Committed Toyota

As speculation mounts that Ford’s Australian vehicle
manufacturing will wind up early and doubts emerge about whether Holden will
build the Cruze beyond 2015, Toyota Australia has reaffirmed its determination
to assemble cars at its Altona plant until the end of 2017.

Toyota last week announced it would exit Australian
manufacturing, joining Holden –also aiming to build cars here until the end of
2017 – and Ford, shooting for an October 2016 shutdown. Both announced their
withdrawal last year.

“It is our strong intention to go through to the end of
2017,” Toyota's executive director sales and marketing Tony Cramb told
motoring.com.au at today’s launch of the 11th generation Corolla sedan in
Tasmania.

“We have announced we will invest in ‘Big Minor Change’
[for Camry and Aurion] in 2015, which is a statement of intent, if you like.

“We wouldn’t be spending that money if it wasn’t our
intention to go all the way through. We have a customer base both here and over
in the Middle East which is reliant on our ability to supply.”

Potential hurdles for Toyota include whether enough of
the Australian supplier base survives to enable it to fulfil this commitment
and whether sales stay high enough to warrant keeping the Altona plant open.

Sales of Ford’s locally built Falcon and Territory have
slumped far enough to prompt the retrenchment of 300 workers ahead of schedule
and for the blue oval to warn it may not be able to sustain the losses out to
October 2016, although it remains committed to a Falcon and Territory update in
the third quarter of 2014.

Holden faces questions over what to do with the Cruze
small car, which is due for generational change mid-decade. The new car won’t
be built here, which potentially places the Elizabeth plant survival till the
end of 2017 in doubt.

“Obviously we are going to have to work with suppliers,
we are going to have to work with governments. Most importantly we are going to
have to work with our people and the unions that represent them and even the
other manufacturers to ensure an orderly transition,” Cramb said.

“But it is our clear intention to be here until the end
of 2017.”

Cramb revealed an appeal of a federal court decision
preventing Toyota from putting a package of cost-cutting measures to a vote of
Altona staff would still go ahead. But whatever the outcome it would not
influence the duration of the factory’s existence.

“That case found according to that particular judge that
we did something contrary to the law and we don’t believe that we have done
that, so we are going to represent our view and fight for it,” Cramb said.

Federal Court Justice Mordy Bromberg ruled that Toyota’s
bid to cut employee entitlements breached the no-extra-claims provision of its
workplace agreement covering employees. He granted an injunction filed against
Toyota by four senior workers and backed by the Australian Metal Workers Union
(AMWU), meaning the company would first have to seek a variation from its
employees through a vote before the broader agreement could be put to workers.

“We believe we are right to get our employees to vote on
the conditions but that’s not the way it was judged to be in the case. We
believe that’s not true. So we are going to represent ourselves and make sure
that we address that situation,” Cramb added.

Cramb said that now the decision had been made to close
Altona most of the cost cutting measures were no longer relevant to the new
workplace agreement due to be negotiated in 2015.

“The negotiations we are going to have with the employees
and the union are totally different now,” Cramb said. “So when we were trying
to get that discussion it was to secure local manufacturing and export here in
Australia.

“But clearly those conditions have changed, so the
discussions we will have into 2015 about the workplace agreement will be
totally different.”